Search Results: Brendan Byrne

While it is a matter of public record the Turnbull government blocked attempts to establish a royal commission into the financial services sector on multiple occasions, the question as to why, especially when it expeditiously facilitated a similar inquiry into corruption within the union movement, is of more than academic interest.

Whether or not the person in the now notorious 'fake tradie' ad is or isn't a 'real' tradie is irrelevant. What is relevant is that it is a primary example of the co-option of the language of class struggle and economic justice that has so thoroughly poisoned economic debate in the industrialised West. Implicit within it is a patronising view of the working class that dismisses them as gullible dupes who can be made to entrench the privilege of the few in return for the paltry crumbs of consumer hedonism.

'And the Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us, and we saw his glory, full of grace and truth' (John 1:1, 14). In the second-last conversation I had with Peter, we agreed that that text should be the Gospel for his Requiem. There is a sense, I’m sure, in which every poem that Peter wrote was an instance of the Word becoming flesh.

Politicians are always pitilessly represented in cartoons. Just ask Kevin 'Tintin' Rudd and Julia 'Nose' (or 'Bottom') Gillard. Portrayals of Tony Abbott in Speedos are not part of a plot to undermine him. The public is able to recognise cartoons as exaggerated political commentary.

As I reflect back now, I can see the difference between Peter's urge to write and my own. My hero was the master of terseness, Tacitus. But Peter wanted to find words, and ways of putting words together, that could unfold the shape of what lay beyond words.

When I met Peter Steele I noticed a spark, a
shimmer of wit that almost subverted his serious courtesy. There was a wild mind at work and play, and I would have to
run prodigiously fast even to catch at its stirrups. So it has proved: it's been a long, vigorous, and exultantly
grateful following.

In the past, Australia has produced a number of theologians and biblical scholars of international standing. But the future is bleak, with 37 per cent intending to retire within five years. Structural rationalisation must start now.

Brendan Byrne spent nearly two decades in the union movement in various capacities. He is undertaking a Bachelor of Theology at the United Faculty of Theology. In addition to interests in philosophy, criminology, and cosmology, he is currently writing a novel.